Abstract:
An abstract recapitulates the main article
depicting the major sections which the researcher wishes
to convey. Despite acting like an advertisement for a
scientific paper, some authors treat the abstract as an
afterthought, giving it a mediocre summary of sentences
picked from the main article. An optimized abstract
enables readers get the essence of a scientific research
paper at a glance without reading the entire article.
Conference organizers, journal editors and reviewers are
very keen on the abstract as it is a good predictor of the
quality of an article to be presented or published. Search
engines and bibliographic databases use the abstract and
title to identify key terms to index a published scientific
paper. What a researcher includes in the abstract is
essential for optimizing its discovery by search engines,
raising the ranking of the paper in a search and making
it easier for other researchers spotting the article. This
article describes different categories of abstracts besides
providing a detailed guideline for designing a scientific
research abstract with an aim of optimizing its
accessibility in search engines. Scientific researchers of
different levels of experience may find useful insights in
this article as they will understand how to design an
abstract and ultimately make it stand out
